Endgame
by Moon Hound Hati
Summary: This is the grand finale. Everything or nothing. Written for The Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter.

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**Endgame**

The sword of Gryffindor fell to the stone floor, the metallic clatter echoing through the almost deserted and crumbling Great Hall of Hogwarts.

…Ron's body, with a hole the size of my fist in his chest and broken wand clutched in his hand, soon followed.

For the briefest of moments, it almost seemed as if time had stopped – with Voldemort smiling demonically and Hermione looking as if she just wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare. But she would never wake up, because this was reality, and in this reality I had just lost one of my best friends.

She screamed. She screamed at the top of her lungs in anger and sorrow.

Then she charged at Voldemort, the spells she threw at him quickly getting darker and darker in nature. For a moment I wondered when and where Hermione had learned such spells. Hermione, who'd usually bent her back backwards if the rules said so.

I snapped out of my thoughts when I saw Voldemort had started to push Hermione back, rather easily too.

Hermione Granger, brilliant as she may be, was no fighter. Hermione grew up in a comfortable home with loving parents. Voldemort and I grew up in harsh and abusive environments, where almost every day was a struggle for survival of body _and_ mind. That's about the only thing I thought Riddle and I had in common: we were survivors.

I tried to flank Voldemort while he was preoccupied with Hermione, banishing a large chunk of rock that used to be part of the enchanted ceiling at him. Quickly I followed with a pair of piercing curses.

The Dark Lord noticed my attempt to get the drop on him. While Hermione had jumped behind a severed section of the Hufflepuff table that had been flipped on its side to provide cover to evade another killing curse, Riddle blasted my rapidly approaching ceiling piece to kingdom come.

The piercing curses, however, he had more trouble with. The first one he barely managed to block, but the second one had hit his non-wand arm.

A smile had tugged at the corner of my lips for a moment, but quickly disappeared when I saw that it had had barely any effect. The most I had achieved was a brief pained expression from Riddle.

Taking cover behind one of the many fallen ceiling chunks, I noticed that I was quickly running out of energy, even with the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Cuts and bruises covered my body and my clothes were stained with blood, sweat and dirt. This had to end quickly.

My heart stopped for a brief moment when I heard a high pitched, feminine scream.

No… No, no, _no_!

I leaped out from behind my cover just in time to see a now one-armed Hermione Granger get hit full force by the killing curse.

It was as if my blood had run cold and all current thoughts had been erased from my mind. The tears I had been holding back were now running freely down my cheeks.

…I was alone. I was alone, _again_.

Then I heard a laugh. The laugh of the man I hated more than anyone in this world. And before I could have done as much as _look_ in his direction, I was down on the ground. I had berated myself for a moment for being such an unbelievable idiot. "_Constant vigilance!_" Moody's voice echoed through my mind.

I tried to scramble back up to my feet, but I quickly found that I no longer _had_ feet. My legs had been severed from the knees down, but the adrenaline had blocked out most of the pain.

This was it. I couldn't believe it, but this was it.

"Potter," his cold voice called out to me. My wand was only a few feet away from me, but Voldemort had quickly summoned it. Catching it in his free hand, the Dark Lord calmly strolled over to me, as if he was barely wounded at all.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Ron's body and the sword of Gryffindor laying about fifteen feet away from me. Rolling onto my stomach, I tried to crawl over to it using my arms.

Riddle was next to me before I had been even halfway and kicked me back onto my back.

"Potter," he repeated, his crimson red eyes meeting my jade green. A demonic smile had crept up his face. "How I have _longed_ for this moment… Finally, you are at my mercy! There is no escape for you now, only death."

I coughed up some blood when I tried to give some sort of retort. My right arm was stretched out in the sword's direction. Only a wandless summoning spell could have helped me now, but even at full strength it is was a feet I could only have managed after several tries.

This was the end…

"You have given me much trouble, Harry," Voldemort continued, bending over me. "But this where your little adventure ends… _permanently_."

No way… No way was it going to end like this. He was not going to win. I wouldn't accept it! I wouldn't allow it!

"You're going to hell, _Tom_…" I coughed blood again. "…Even if I have to take you there myself!"

A metallic clatter echoed once again through the Great Hall and I soon felt my hand grip itself around the smooth handle of Gryffindor's sword.

Before Riddle could react I swung the sword upward with all the strength I had left, severing the head from the body.

Blood sprayed from the body as it collapsed next to me, coating me in red. The shocked expression on the pale and bald head as it rolled around on the ground was priceless.

I grinned like an idiot, even though my vision was starting to grow dark and my body numb.

With my last few breaths I managed to say, "And the final score… is… Gryffindor one… Slytherin… nothing…"

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**Final note:** I wrote this under two hours for The Harry Potter Fanfic Challenges. Obviously it's not Beta-read and it's also the first thing I wrote and posted in over a year.


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